I halt our progression around the bar. “Seriously? You don’t drink?”
“No. I don’t even really like food cooked with alcohol.”
Interesting. “Okay. I’d ask about any sauces you’re unfamiliar with, but most of the food here is just amazing low-country Southern cooking.”
Lynn shakes her head. “I’ve eaten here before and I still don’t know what that means.”
Pulling back, I scan her from head to toe. “It means you should know you’re going to wish you didn’t eat for three days once you get started.”
As I start moving us forward again, I think I hear her say, “I didn’t eat because I was so nervous.”
Ah, well, crap.
As we approach the table, I give my mother and Ev a reassuring smile. “Look who I ran into at the hostess station.” I drop Lynn’s arm and place a hand at the small of her back.
Ev gets to his feet slowly. “Lynn?” he whispers in shock. “You look just like Elle did but…”
She holds out her hand. “With your eyes. I always wondered where they came from. Mom said it was from a distant relative.”
He scrambles around the table and clutches both of Lynn’s hands in his. They stare at each other as I move around to Mom. It’s beautiful, awful, and painful to watch. I curl Mom into my chest when I hear Lynn ask, “So, which do you prefer? Everett, Ev, or Rhett? Monty gave away your full name earlier when he was trying to prevent me from screaming holy hell after he accosted me in the foyer.”
Mom bursts out laughing. I have to defend myself. “I did not ‘accost’ you. I was merely trying to detain you as you looked like you were ready to bolt.”
She snickers. “What are you? A cop or something?”
Mom and Ev answer, “Something,” in unison. I tack on, “I was, but I recently changed jobs.” Her lips part in surprise.
“Let’s sit. Get some drinks. I’m Charlotte—Char—Monty’s mother.” Mom holds out her hand for Lynn to shake. Lynn reaches past me and squeezes.
“It’s a pleasure. And please, everyone, make it Linnie. That’s what my close friends and my family call me.”
Linnie. It suits the sharp, funky woman sitting next to me much better than Lynn does. “So, who’s sitting where?” I ask.
Ev’s still in a state of shock. He’s barely moved since his daughter approached the table. “Why don’t you sit next to Linnie, sweetheart. This way, I can snap Ev out of his stupor,” Mom suggests.
“Probably a good idea,” I joke.
“So, it is Ev,” Linnie confirms, as I hold her chair for her.
Since he seems incapable of speech, I answer for him. “Yes.”
She turns to her father and asks, “Then why use Rhett on your profile?”
Ev opens and closes his mouth like a fish. It’s Mom who answers. “When Ev was younger, a lot of people knew him by that name. If they wanted to make a connection, he figured that would be the name they recognized.”
Linnie’s about to respond when the waiter approaches our table for drinks. She orders a Shirley Temple with crushed mint in the bottom. Mom looks at her appraisingly. “That sounds…delicious. Can I have one as well?”
Linnie blushes. “I don’t drink, but please don’t think you don’t have to on my account.”
“I host luncheons all the time, and people are always trying to top one another for the menu. You’ll excuse the fact if this taste as good as it sounds, I’m totally going to steal the idea.” Both women laugh.
“Be my guest. I had it once with lemonade at a restaurant, but I decided to nix the lemonade.”
“You do you, Linnie.” I toast her with the water glass sitting at my right.
“So, how was your flight down?” Ev’s voice is low and quiet, but at least he’s broken his self-imposed silence.
Linnie picks up her glass of water and takes a small sip. “A bit bumpy. I had some rough weather.”
Ev frowns. “It’s been a beautiful day.”
She shrugs. “It was horrible yesterday. I flew through torrential rain over Delaware. I swear, I thought the state wanted to keep me it seemed to take so long to go over it.”
“Why didn’t you say you were coming in last night? You were all alone?”
“Sometimes, I need a little downtime. Time to just…be. I’m not a huge fan of flying to begin with, and I knew I’d be anxious meeting you. I decided to come in a day early so I could curl up with a bowl of ice cream, reread your emails, and be talked off the ledge of insanity by my sister. Who, by the way, says hello. Since she’s read every email you sent, she feels she knows you already.” Ev’s face is a mixture of humorous tragedy.
Mom tries to steer the conversation to neutral ground. “Where did you stay last night? There are so many lovely places in the area.”
Linnie lets out a low laugh that hits me right in the gut. As she tosses her hair over her shoulder, I can’t help but stare at her. God, she’s beautiful. “Funny enough, I stayed next door.” At the startled expression on my mother’s face, she laughs. “I know. That’s why I accused Monty of accosting me in the foyer. He and I rode in the elevator together from the Hamilton.”
“That’s before I tried to ask her out,” I toss out casually.
Both Ev and Mom’s eyes turn on me like I’m fifteen again and was just caught with my hands down Natalie Wells’s pants on our first date. “You didn’t,” Ev breathes.
I point a finger at him. “Don’t go there. I believe I’m the one who recommended asking Linnie for a current picture.”
“True,” Ev gives in. “But even I recognized she looks just like Elle.”
“Who was more than just a single photograph on your brain, Ev,” I counter. The waiter approaches with our drinks. After putting them down, I lift my Kentucky lemonade. “A toast, to families. Those who are with us now.” I nod to Linnie. “Those who are in our hearts always.” I smile at my mother.
“Beautifully said.” Linnie’s lips curves, showing off both of her dimples. I ignore the punch to my gut and tip my glass forward. The four of our glasses clink together in the center of the table before we all take a sip. Suddenly my mother bursts out with, “Linnie, this is delicious. I am absolutely serving this at my next event.”
The woman sitting next to me sends my mother a dazzling smile that could light up a room. “Have at it, Char. Ugh. I still need to figure out what to eat. This place is divine.”
“Tell me what you were thinking,” my mother encourages. And soon, the two most important women in Everett Parrish’s life are chatting away inconsequentially about lunch choices. I know Ev wants to break in and ask more in-depth questions, but for now, he sits back and sips his drink, reveling in the moment.
Taking my cue from a man who’s taught me so much, I decide to do the same.
Twenty-Two
Evangeline
“Tell me what working in communications is like, Linnie.” I freeze at the question my father asks me.
“I do a lot of talking.” And singing, but I keep that to myself. I hope that answer satisfies my father, who has come out of his shell during our meal. After all, I have no idea what someone who works in communications actually does.
When I panicked one night after my father asked what I did for a living, Bristol suggested I tell him I’m in communications. “After all, you do ‘vocalize’ a lot to people.” She grinned.
“True,” I’d readily agreed at the time.
By explaining that Brogan LLC was a communications firm instead of the way I pay my publicist, lawyers, agent, accountant, and her, it seemed like the perfect solution. Mom and I used to run everything through the same overhead corporation, with our own individual sub corporations to handle our separate finances. Bristol and my accountant handle everything with ease. I drag myself in tirelessly for quarterly updates where I’m assured the government is getting their healthy chunk of my earnings and the rest is being invested soundly.
“Do you have to travel a lot?” Monty asks me. Gratefully,
I can answer that one honestly.
“No. There are occasional trips where I have to handle something outside of New York, but I’ve been very fortunate. I pretty much get to pick and choose my…clients.” I almost flubbed up and said roles.
“Is it going to be a lot more stress on you now that your mother is gone?” Char asks gently. I bite my lip to keep the tears from overflowing. My voice is scratchy when I answer her.
“Emotionally, it’s already been an overload of stress. I feel like there’s this huge weight on my shoulders I can’t let go of. But if you mean work? No. She picked and chose what she did at this point. There won’t be any additional workload felt by anyone.” Even though some are still grieving her loss, they’re already salivating over the opportunities Brielle Brogan’s death means.
Monty jumps into the conversation. “So, is it nine-to-five? Do you have an office?”
Thank God Bristol prepped me to answer this. “We tend to go on-site to work.” I stretch the truth so thin, you could read my next Playbill through it. “And no, my hours are not a straight forty; more often than not, I work six days a week.”
Char laughs. “You inherited that from both your parents, then.” She points at Ev. His cheeks pink. “He was a complete workaholic. Even now, if I don’t open the door to his office around mealtime, I’d never see him.”
I laugh at the imagery. “So, the adage is true but slightly modified? It’s not the way to a man’s heart, but the way to see if he exists?”
“Exactly,” she agrees.
“I’m so glad my daughter and my wife are ganging up against me. Monty, you’re still on my team, right, son?” Something catches a little inside at hearing my father call another man his son, but I dismiss it. After all, Patrick was a decent father, I guess, until he found out I wasn’t his. And I can’t blame him after my reaction. I just feel sad we were never able to reconnect since he died.
“I’m remaining neutral, Ev. Since I came back to work for you, I’ve rather enjoyed not having to cook for myself.” He smiles. His eyes crinkle at the corners, causing little flutters in my stomach the way they did when he stopped me at the hotel a few hours earlier.
“What is it you do? Did?” I correct myself. By steering the conversation away from myself, I hope to learn more about my father. Certainly, it’s not to find out more about my new stepbrother.
“We own a farm in Northern Virginia,” Monty answers. “Since Ev is getting old, I left my previous job to help him with the day-to-day operations of it.”
“Thanks for the ‘old’ crack,” Ev grumbles. But he’s grinning, nonetheless. I see the same dimples that grace my face on his. Even though Monty said earlier we shared the same smile, now I can see it. That sends a shaft of shock through me since I always believed I had Mom’s. Pulling myself out of my stupor, I ask more about the farm.
“So, cows, goats, things like that?”
He’s shaking his head. “Horses. Northern Virginia is prime horse country. There are some beautiful places to ride.”
I nod, though I’d never heard that. The only horses I’ve been behind pull a carriage around Central Park. “You must have enjoyed growing up on a farm.”
“I didn’t buy the farm until later in life,” Ev explains. He reaches over and squeezes Char’s hand. “I didn’t meet Char until Monty was twelve.”
Startled, I find Char smiling at me. “It’s true. I was working in a hotel, and Ev dumped the vase of flowers all over me.”
“I was so blinded by how beautiful you were I was clumsy.” He lifts her hand to his lips.
“Where were you when you met? Here in DC?” I ask as I take a small sip of coffee.
“I was working in a hotel in Manhattan at the time.”
I choke a bit. “Seriously? You’re from the city? Where’s your accent?” I demand.
Char laughs. “I’m originally from the Midwest. Since I never talked like a typical New Yorker, I never passed that on to Monty.”
“How does one earn the name Montague anyway?”
Monty groans and buries his head in his hands. “Try a mother who was a theater major in college and obsessed with all things Shakespeare. That’s how,” he grumbles.
A theater major from New York? I can feel the walls closing in on me. To push them back a little while longer, I decide to turn the tables a bit. “So, Montague.” He lifts his head and glares at me. “Before you went to help out with the family farm, what did you do?”
“Ev never told you?” He frowns at his stepfather.
“No. I had just started to talk about my family when we decided to meet in person. And I apologize for springing them on you as a surprise, Linnie. I just figured it might be best to get all the uncomfortableness out of the way.”
I wave off his concern. “I appreciate your line of thinking. Now. When I was at the maître d’ station earlier, not so much.”
“I’m glad you can understand his logic,” Monty mutters. “Even as a trained investigator, I have trouble with it sometimes.”
My head whips around. “A trained investigator? What do you mean? Was I investigated?” Have these lovely people known I’ve been lying to them the entire time?
Monty scowls at Ev. “No, because Ev asked me to not call in the markers I’m still owed. Why? Hiding any skeletons in your closet?”
Oh, only my name, who my mother really was, and what I do for a living. Nothing major. “No more than the average person.” As much as I’m withholding information, I can feel Monty doing the same thing. “Is it a place I’d recognize?”
“You might. When I got out of the Navy, I went to work for the Naval Criminal Investigative Services.”
Faintly, I say, “NCIS? Like the shows on TV?”
He shakes his head. “No. Nothing like the shows. It’s tougher and a lot harder, but we’re just as determined to find out all the answers.”
Suddenly, swallowing seems like an improbability. Here I am stretching the truth—okay, lying—to a former government agent. Can they arrest me for that? I’m just about to open my mouth to admit to who I am when the waiter comes up with our desserts.
“Ma’am, I believe you selected the sweet potato cheesecake?” The young waiter slips a dish in front of me.
“I did. Thank you.” If I’m about to be sent to the pokey because I’ve been lying to my father, stepmother, and her son—the fed—I plan on eating every damn bite of this dessert that’s drowning in caramel sauce and whipped cream.
Who knows? I might find a dance partner in prison who can work it off of me.
* * *
Being on the stage my whole career has been a great adventure I wouldn’t trade for the world. I’ve sung and danced for people who want to escape their world for a little while. It’s been exhilarating every moment I’ve played a role. Except for right now when I’d give anything to be just the woman I’ve sworn for the last few hours I am to my birth father.
“So, when do you fly back, Linnie?” We’re all standing outside Georgia Browns. It’s a weird feeling; after all, we’re all heading back to the same hotel.
“Anytime,” I blurt out without thinking. Three sets of eyes give me different looks of confusion. “I, um, have an open-ended ticket.” Probably because the pilot knows I’ll give him twelve hours’ notice when I’m ready to leave.
“Really? I was hoping we might have a chance for another chance to talk. Just us.” Ev’s nervousness starts to make an appearance. I do what comes naturally, what I’d do if I were backstage with a nervous fan. I reach over and squeeze his arm. He lets out a deep breath.
“That’d be lovely. What are you doing tomorrow? I flew into Dulles, so I thought I might hit Tyson’s Corner on my way out of town.”
His eyes grow wide and flick toward Char before they meet mine. “I have a doctor’s appointment in the morning, but if you don’t mind a late lunch…”
“I don’t mind at all.” Lunch was enjoyable, but I feel so much more of a connection to Char, and even Monty, tha
n I do Ev right now. I attribute it to the fact that they’re naturally more outgoing than he is.
We need this time together—my father and me.
“There’s a restaurant in Tyson’s called Coastal Oaks,” Char suggests. “It’s part of a local chain. You can’t go wrong with anything on the menu.”
I smile at her warmly. “Sounds like we have a winner. You mentioned a doctor’s appointment? If you let me know what time that is, I’ll plan to meet you a few hours later.”
Monty barks out a laugh. “What?” I ask innocently. “Just because I think doctors should send out a text message like restaurants do when your table is ready…”
Now everyone is laughing. “I’ll be sure to mention that to mine tomorrow.” My father grins. “Now, I understand why you’re so successful at your job, Linnie. You have a very natural way of putting people at ease.”
Except myself, I think guiltily. I hate lying to these kind people, but I had to be sure my father was as genuine as he appeared in email. “Thank you,” I say sincerely. “But I think that’s just something I learned.”
“Then your mother did a spectacular job raising you,” Char declares. Laying a hand on my shoulder, she brushes her cheek next to mine. “Thank you for being so lovely in person, Linnie. I hope we’ll meet again.”
“Me too, Char. And thank you for being here. It was a nice surprise.” I mean it. My father’s wife complements him beautifully.
She pulls back, and then Monty’s in front of me. “There’s still something about you,” he murmurs. He brushes his hand casually over my shoulder. I feel the jolt down to my toes.
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing,” I joke.
His head tilts. He purses his lips while he considers his words. “It’s something. I’ll let you know when I figure it out. In the meantime, safe travels.” He leans down and brushes his lips against my cheek. Thank God he can’t feel the way my heart skips a beat in my chest as I inhale the scent of the rain mixed with the woods that’s clinging to his skin. As I so rarely get to smell fresh scents in the city, it’s intoxicating to my senses. “Thank you for making it a pleasure.”
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